Some of my ideas are inspired by unusual sources. Some don't even come from the conscious mind (or should that be rational?). This idea came to me while snoozing one day. I sent it to a cop friend, and his comments are below:-

Strange some of the dreams I have -but I'm still not sure if this one is very silly or not. I had a dream about cops using an orange hard ball as a "less lethal weapon": -Perp waving a knife about? -bounce one of these off his forehead or groin. This spawns two other ideas :

a boomerang type club used in the same way, and also thrown at the legs of a fleeing suspect.

Baseball type grenade of OC with an impact fuse -rather like the OSS Beano grenade. This would explode into a cloud of gas as it hits the suspect.

Phil, If we didn't have weird ideas once in a while we would be neither creative nor very interesting, would we. The thrown impact weapon idea HAS been used; a poorly done TV cop show (popular of course) over here, "T. J. Hooker", had the hero used a PR24 (side handle baton), thrown at knee high level, to take down fleeing criminals. The down side of throwing an impact weapon at the bad guy is that you are giving the bad guy a WEAPON. If he picks it up and proceeds to do bad things with it and then you have to shoot him, you are liable for both the damage he does and for you shooting him. The up side is that given all the excitement over less lethal weapons, you could get someone, or a government, to finance development of your ideas. If the ideas workout then fine, if they don't work then you get to have a great deal of fun with someone else paying the bill! John PS: let me know if you get the funding, I'll be your American LE consultant! PPS I forgot the OC grenade idea. I think someone already has one or may still be working on it, don't know , it just sounds familiar. It could be a bleed over from a book I read last year on WW1 weapon s the covered grenade development pretty heavy; early grenades were usually impact fused. Also, a US mfg. has taken a Tippman paint ball gun and filled it with OC filled gelatin capsules rather than paint.

PW: T.J Hooker stared William Shatner. There was also pilot program about bounty hunters in which one (called "Hardball", naturally) would take people down with Baseballs. Supposably every red-blooded American knows how to throw a baseball, and this was part of the logic behind the HE-Beano grenade. Impact fuses for grenades are nothing new, but I don't recall any for OC grenades that are intended to be used in a one on one situation as I'm visualizing. I can see your point about giving the Perp a weapon but this is a ball. It will probably bounce off or roll away after impact. In Shirakami's book he suggests that women can defend themselves with thrown golf balls. Those orange balls used for practice are probably about right, and carrying a couple of these would not be much of a burden. Whether such a ball would stop a runner, or the best target remains to be seen. I'm sure the inventive will come up for other uses for these balls once they have them. In the film "The First Great Train Robbery" Sean Connery's character lets a ball bounce down some stairs so that it sounds like he is coming down them. You mentioned Chinese Boxers throwing Ball bearings as weapons? See below.